birthday celebration at spom

the balestier group met again this month at the senior police officers' mess at mt pleasant road to celebrate seck yeong's birthday. i have visited the former junior police officers' mess at ladyhill a few times but this was my first visit to the mess for senior officers. the mess is in a very secluded location, quite close to the old police academy and the onraet road's detention centre.

hiang kwang, who is based in sydney most of the time, was supposed to be there but he could not get on a flight on 19 dec, the date he had planned to fly back. wing choy could not make it as he had a wedding dinner to attend. the welcomed surprise was the presence of khoo boo sun, who has kept away from the group for quite some time. we congratulated him on his esteemed appointment as an international race officer - the highest level of running and managing sailing races.

before the commencement of the dinner, we were taken on a tour of the mess by teck seng. we were shown the spa, the jackpot room, the billiard room, the hall - where christmas parties used to be held - and the photo gallery where the photographs of all the police commissioners were on display.

i do not know how many courses there were for dinner but we had a lot to eat. after eating the birthday cake, we adjourned to the karaoke lounge and room. my wife must have let my former students in on my 'croaking' at home, so they were trying to get me to 'start the ball rolling' by singing the first song. cheng hong sang the first song, a mandarin one.

there was some discussion on the next gathering before we left the place just before 11 p.m.

jennifer's birthday dinner @ craig rd

jennifer celebrated her half-century birthday at xi yan restaurant, an exclusive restaurant at 38a craig road.

the menu is not the run-of-the mill type. we started with their signature dish - greenhouse tomatoes in sesame sauce. this was followed by three other appetisers: grilled thai pork cheek, japanese cucumber rosettes and spicy shishamo with xo terayaki sauce.

the main course started with marinated drunken prawns. the other dishes were hakka marinated duck, braised beef brisket in sichuan hot and spicy sauce, stir fried spicy bean curd crabs, intermezzo of chrysanthemum tea sorbet with sugarcane crystals, chinese cabbage consomme (soup) and stir fried mushrooms with pickled cucumber.

to round off everything, we had a piece of the birthday cake each and coconut and durian sauce on sea coconut and attap seed pudding.

durian feast for birthday

today bought 7 golden phoenix (kim hong) and 2 cat mountain king (mao shan wang) durians for around $100 from my regular vendor at woodgrove. yesterday, i had gone there with the intention of placing today's order with him but at 7.00 p.m., he was nowhere to be found. today, he explained to me that his whole lorry-load of durians had been bought over by someone on saturday.

we actually had a proper home-cooked dinner and so the durians were part of the after-meal dessert. we had chicken curry, chap chye, honey pork ribs and kong bak with tau pok. these could go with either the steamed rice or the toasted garlic bread.

pei ling bought a cake for her father's birthday.

the eight of us managed to finish about four durians, both the mao shan wang and about two of the golden phoenix. i say about two because we opened four of the golden phoenix durians but not all the segments. so, they ended up having to tar pau durians and other unfinished food home.

i think these were about the best durians we had tasted for a long time.